3 Using student talk to inform your teaching

Students often talk about their learning. Now try Activity 4.

Activity 4: Listening in on your students’ talk

To understand the potential of student talk as a learning resource, try to discreetly listen in on a conversation your students are having. Do this more than once if you can.

See if you can overhear your students doing some of the following:

  • paying attention to something
  • thinking about it carefully
  • exchanging observations
  • organising their observations and experiences in a systematic way
  • challenging one another’s observations and experiences
  • arguing on the basis of observation and experience
  • making a prediction
  • recalling an earlier observation or experience
  • imagining someone else’s experience or feelings
  • recounting their own feelings or experiences.

Pause for thought

  • Did you listen in on any students who were in the process of learning something or and consolidating their learning through talk?

  • How could you use these conversations as resources for your teaching?

As a teacher, it is important to be a good listener. Very often you can incorporate elements of what you hear your students say into your future lesson plans.

Now read the two examples in Case Study 2. As you read, think about how the teachers use what they hear to inform their teaching. When you have finished, find another opportunity to listen in on your students. What aspects of their talk might inform your future classroom activities?

Case Study 2: Building on students’ talk

Ms Bhumi is a Class II teacher in Madhya Pradesh.

I was eating lunch outside when I heard raised voices. I decided not to intervene, but to listen closely. Four students were arguing about a poem I had read to them that morning. While I had been reading the poem, the class had listened quietly. I therefore assumed everyone had understood it. But as I listened to my students arguing, I realised most of them had misunderstood it completely. I learnt this by overhearing their different interpretations of the meaning of some of the key words in the poem.

I decided to revisit the poem with them the next day and explore their understanding of it again. This incident taught me that when we had other text-based lessons, I needed to allow more time to check whether any vocabulary was unfamiliar and explain it carefully if that was the case. I have done this regularly since then and have noticed the benefits already.

Mrs Saroj is a Class V teacher in Bihar.

I used to specify very precisely the points I expected my students to make in their writing assignments. This made their texts very similar.

One morning before class, I heard several students talking together. During those few minutes, they discussed a surprising variety of topics, explaining, questioning, arguing and predicting as they did so. They had so many interesting ideas.

As a result of overhearing them, I realised that if I gave my students opportunities to draw on their spoken language resources, experiences and interests in this way, they would write much more creatively and meaningfully.

Now I organise my students into groups of four or five and give them a topic to discuss before inviting them to do an individual writing assignment. So far, the topics they have talked and written about have included the tea stall outside the school, a local celebration, a recent sports event, and the trees in the neighbourhood. Sometimes I send my students out into the school compound to observe things, discuss them with one another and then write about them.

In the final activity, you will try out a group activity that incorporates talk and writing. You may find the key resource ‘Using groupwork [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ’ useful.

Activity 5: Using group talk to prepare for writing

Using the case study of Mrs Saroj as a guide, prepare a lesson in which you invite your students to discuss a topic before they write about it individually.

  • Divide your class into groups of four, five or six.
  • Give each group a topic to discuss. This will depend on your students’ age and interests. You could give a photograph or newspaper clipping to each group for inspiration.
  • Model with two or three students how you would like them to talk together, demonstrating how to ask helpful exploratory questions and listen respectfully to their classmates’ answers.
  • Go around the class, assisting the groups if required. Use this as an opportunity to observe your students’ behaviour, their mastery of language and their understanding of the topic in question.
  • After the discussion session, ask your students to write a short essay on the topic they discussed together.
  • On occasion, you might wish to distribute your student’s essays among the other members of the group for interest.
  • Finally, let your evaluation of your students’ writing inform the planning of your subsequent lessons.

2 Using pictures as a prompt for student talk

Summary